The Sweet Taste of Natural Honey

Do you love the taste of natural honey? Not merely from store shelves, but the real deal - honey straight from a local hive? There really is nothing to compare with the natural, sweet taste of honey straight from your own hive.

But how exactly do bees create honey? There's quite a story behind that. In fact, there are no foods on your table that have history behind them.

The creation of honey is an amazing process, leaving us with an appreciation for some of earth’s smallest creatures. We already know that honey bees are fascinating. They have certain goals in life and work collaboratively to achieve them. The design and purpose behind each step of the honey-making process means we respect still more nature's most effective producers.

Why Do Bees Make Honey?

Think of someone who preserves their own food and why they might do that. They might tell you it is because they want to feed their families a healthy variety of vitamins and minerals throughout the cold months, when most fresh foods aren't available. Additionally, some might mention they would like to be certain to have plenty of food stored so they'll survive, regardless of circumstances (this was perhaps a little more likely as a response in the past).

Honey provides necessary energy through its vitamins and sugars. If you’ve ever heard the term ‘busy as a bee’ it is very literal. Bees flap their wings over 11,000 times a minute - which means they need a ton of energy. Storing their own honey helps guarantee that they have what they need, throughout the year

Bees are very proactive! If you find a wild hive you might be ssurprised tosee that they put aside enough honey to last them for years. If something were to happen to prevent them from foraging (i.e. a drought or lack of vegetation for foraging) the hive could potentially support a colony of bees of around 60,000 (at peak times) for a few years.

How do bees use their honey?

Bees need honey to feed their young. They also need honey to help them survive the cold winter months when they can’t get out to forage for food.

How Is Honey Made?

Foraging for Nectar

Bees will forage within a 5-mile radius of their hive, though they will generally stay as close as possible. It is interesting to watch how bees obtain their coordinates for this radius.

When you first bring your bees home, some beekeepers though not all, keep them in their hive for a few days. When let out, worker bees will make circles over the hive. This is their way of obtaining their coordinates, so they will know the location of their hive and will generally wander within that 5 miles radius.

There are certain flowers that attract bees when they are out foraging. These flowers contain sugary nectar and high protein pollen. Flowers bees like include flowers and fruits such as apple, blackberry, dandelion, clover, golden rod, lavender, lime trees, ivy, rosemary, and more. The sugar and protein components give the bee's young (larvae) a good start to life. When they are full-fledged bees they also need the energy to flap their wings so quickly.

When bees collect nectar, they use a long tongue, called a proboscis, that can slide down into the flower and suck nectar out like a straw. They store the nectar in a second stomach, sometimes called a honey stomach, that doesn’t digest nectar. It serves as a carrying purse and is in front of the digestive tract of the bee. The honey stomach can hold up to 70 mg of nectar and weigh almost as much as the bee itself.

Honey bees have little hairs on their bodies that allow pollen to stick to them, so they can carry both nectar and pollen while flying. While the worker bees are flying and storing nectar, the honey stomach begins mixing the nectar with enzymes to start pulling some of the water out of the nectar.

It is important to note that bees do not turn their vomit into honey. That is a huge myth. When the bee intakes the nectar they use one of two valves, sending the nectar into the bee’s digestion. This is a good thing, because if the worker bee needs energy while in flight she can use this option while collecting.

If she doesn't need the energy, then the nectar takes a second pathway into the honey stomach where it won’t be digested. Once bees make the choice to begin digesting the nectar, then that nectar cannot be used to create honey.

Do bees prepare for summer?

Bees will forage heavily in the spring to get ready for a summer dearth. They prepare for a summer drought when there is little growth or pollination taking place.

Passing to A House Bee

When the worker returns to the hive with the nectar she has foraged, there will be a younger worker bee waiting. This waiting bee is often referred to as a house bee. Her job is to suck the nectar out of the honey stomach of the forager. Either way, the process is pretty intense!

Once the nectar has been transferred, the house bee will chew it for about 30 minutes. While chewing, she adds enzymes to the nectar to break it down and forms a simple syrup. The enzymes also reduce the water content in the nectar. This makes it easier to digest and less likely to be plagued by bacteria while stored inside the hive.

Spreading the Syrup

Once this process is complete the worker will distribute the resultant syrup over the comb of the hive. This is accomplished by spitting up the nectar that she chewed for the past half hour. She will deposit this inside a cell in the honeycomb. Then she spreads the tops out to maximize the surface area, so that water can continue to evaporate from the honey syrup and make it thicker over time. Additionally, bees help reduce the water content by fanning the honey with their wings.

Capping the Honey

Once the honey is to the right consistency and the water content at the right level, a bee will cap it with beeswax, ready for later consumption. The capping process is rather intense too. Bees will excrete a substance from their abdomen to cap the honey. This comes from wax glands on top of their abdomen. The glands push out sheets of this substance, made up of scales, which dry to form beeswax.

How much honey can a colony consume in one year?

A large colony can consume 100-200 pounds of honey in a year.

What Bees Need To Make Honey

Bees need nectar and water to make honey. They need a place to live, such as the hive. They also need pollen. Adult bees don’t need much pollen. However, bee larvae need lots of pollen because of the high protein content.

Bees have other needs too. They need vitamins, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and minerals. They require each of these to raise healthy new bees. This, in turn, means raising healthy young workers and eventually foragers. These requirements all play a key role in the continuation of a thriving colony.

While nectar is a key building block for honey, pollen is a vital component for bee’s health in general. When bees arrive back at the hive with pollen caught in their hairs, it must be "processed". Pollen is for the larvae, instead of the adult bees. Adult bees will eat some of it for protein but larvae need it for their formation as they transform into adult bees.

When a bee arrives with pollen, it will be stored within the hive for later use as a protein source. Bees will also collect juice from plant sources and dust from animal feed, if necessary, to store as a future protein source if enough pollen is not available.

Bees eat differently, depending on their type and age. They all receive Vitamin B complex and Vitamin C nutrients from honey and pollen, but get their protein differently. The queen, males (drones), and larvae get their protein through a substance called royal jelly. It is a secretion that worker bees give off. Worker bees usually get their protein from what they are collecting and storing for a later date.

Bees are survivalist and will find what they need in one form or another.

The Make-Up Of Honey

An amazing aspect of honey is that it does not spoil, due to a process known as crenation. This ensures that, when honey has been drained of much of its water and with such a high sugar concentration, it will not spoil.

Bees need certain vitamins, nutrients, lipids, and minerals for their survival. Honey supplies most of these needs. Honey is made up of about 82% carbohydrates, mainly fructose and glucose. It also contains a variety of enzymes that help convert other enzymes into fructose and glucose. Honey also has 18 different amino acids.

As if that wasn’t enough, honey contains a variety of vitamins and minerals. These include Vitamin B, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, calcium, iron, zinc, potassium, magnesium, chromium, as well as antioxidants like flavonoids.

Anyone familiar with diabetes and carbs probably understands the breakdown of honey. Honey is mostly carbohydrates. Carbs break down quickly and, when they do, the carbs are then converted to sugar (i.e. fructose and glucose). This in turn provides the energy bees need.

In layman’s terms, bees basically run around on a sugar high all day!

Most worker bees only live a matter of weeks during the peak season and they do not sleep. They effectively work themselves to death during that time and need a great deal of energy to get the job done. While honey gives them the huge energy boost they need, it also provides the necessary vitamins and minerals they need to maintain good health during their short life.

Different Types Of Honey

There are many varieties of honey available. In the south it is very common to see clover and golden rod honey, for example. What impact do different flowers have on honey?

The type of honey your bees make will depend on the plants they visit when collecting nectar. The plants visited will determine the taste, aroma, texture and color of the honey.

As a rule of thumb, honey that is clear or very light in color will usually be milder and less sweet. Darker honey, by comparison, will often have a more pronounced taste and be sweeter.

So if bees visit lavender to make their honey, the honey will likely have a lavender scent. If they visit clover fields, their honey may be less sweet, lighter in color and have a thinner texture other honey. Bees can make honey from blueberry bushes, avocado plants, clover, buckwheat, sage, wild flowers, and even poison ivy. There is even the mystery of purple honey.

A Few Fascinating Facts About Honey Production

Honey will never go bad. As long as it is kept away from air and water it will be good for years. The reason honey won’t spoil is because, without air and water, it is hard for any organism to survive, helping give honey a very long shelf life.

One difference between raw organic honey and plain honey off of a store shelf is that raw organic honey contains pollen. Pollen offers many benefits to both humans and bees. Raw organic honey will contain pollen as a source of protein for bees, which is needed to maintain their energy levels, especially in the colder winter months when foraging just isn’t a viable option for them.

It takes 2 million flowers to produce 1 pound of honey.

One honey bee produces about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

Honey weighs about 12 pounds per gallon.

The most expensive honey in the world is called “Elvish” honey. It is made naturally in Turkey and sells for around $6800 per kilogram (about $850 per cup)

Honey is usually sold by weight instead of volume. Keep this in mind when purchasing honey because it can be sold either on or off the comb. If purchased with the comb, then you won't get as much honey.

The next time you see a honey bee, hopefully you will have a new respect for all the magnificent things one tiny creature can accomplish in its lifetime.

Charles, a field bee returning to the hive “hands off” nectar to a house bee for processing and storage and then returns to the field. Bees returning with pollen do not hand it off and go to the place in the comb where pollen is being stored to empty their pollen baskets.

I’m wondering about in the following spring, if there are still frames of capped honey in the brood boxes do I leave them or can I harvest that honey (2 frames) and replace them with new frames & foundations. I have enjoyed the class so far thank you.

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